r/AskALiberal

The question is inspired by this thread, in which some users opined that the Democratic Party should have more control over who becomes a candidate.

There is something to be said for this approach; not only would it have prevented our current predicament in Texas 35, but a more powerful Republican Party would likely have prevented the Trump presidency.

On the other hand, our current primary system was developed — at least in part — as a reaction to the undemocratic nature of decisions made by party elites. And it’s certainly possible to argue that the voters themselves have a better grasp on what the electorate wants than party leadership does. Platner, for instance, is likely a better candidate for Maine than Mills, who is probably who the party would have picked.

What say you? Should we return to the smoke-filled room (or some other less pejorative metaphor)? If so, what would that look like?

I loved all of the show, but I can't find where to discuss it without being dumped on. I kinda think they're vocal maga hating on the jokes against them, but maybe I'm delusional. So my question is are you on the left and did you like it? I am and I did. Homelander's ending was so satisfying.

Edit: Apparently the show is near universally unliked. I want to apologize to the right for thinking it was you. I'll go back to my quiet hole and never speak of the show again.

Title says it all. I've recently switched sides politically and I want to make sure I'm building a solid foundation of knowledge to back up my new beliefs. I’ve grown up in a mostly conservative family so I’m not sure what is the best way to keep educating my self. What are the must-read books, essential podcasts, or key thinkers that every liberal should know? Looking for things that go beyond the surface-level talking points. Thanks!

If so, how accurate do you think its thesis is: a nation's prosperity is determined by its political and economic institutions, not geography, culture, or climate. The authors assert that inclusive institutions, which protect property rights and encourage broad participation, lead to success, while extractive institutions, which enrich a small elite, cause failure.

If you read it and disagreed with the thesis, please say why

Now I want to preface this by saying that this isn't about 2028 or whether you think he's a good politician or not. I understood that not everybody likes him and that's fine. And I think criticism is fine as long as it's warranted. But there are times where I sometimes think that criticism goes into hate. What I mean is whenever I see comments about him where it's more than just I don't want him to be president or he's just a corporate democrat. I was in another thread and I saw a comment saying that they hoped that he slipped up and ignited a whistleblower scandal that ruins him. It's one thing to dislike his policies but there are people literally wishing that he does something illegal or unethical to ruin his career. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people who think like this.

And that's not the only comment like that, last month when the allegations about Eric Swalwell came there was an article about how Newsom still hadn't endorsed anyone for the governors race. I saw a comment joking that he probably was going to endorse Swalwell. Only for someone to reply saying they wish he did so it would ruin his presidential campaign(which he hasn't announced yet). And again this is an example of how it's more than disliking him for his policies and going into just hating him.

I also made another post about him about a different topic and someone said while they didn't like him they said the hate he gets is overblown and that they had to delete blue sky because they said he wasn't as bad as ICE. Now like I said people don't have to like him but some of the hate I've seen him get goes into being obsessive and disturbing. Though I should point out these are only Reddit comments but it wouldn't surprise me if there were more comments like this on Reddit or other apps.

So do you agree that the hate Newsom gets is to much at times and goes more into just policies?

There is precedent for this

• Kansas currently has a Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, as a direct result of Sam Brownback's tax experiment nearly bankrupting the state
• Louisiana's last governor was a Dem, John Bel Edwards, because Bobby Jindal, like Brownback in Kansas, nearly bankrupted Louisiana
• In Kentucky, Andy Beshear beat Matt Bevin, the GOP governor best described as Trump but with none of the charisma (ie an unlikeable douchebag who alienated pretty much everyone), in 2019

So, are there any current deep red state Republican governors who are so awful that there is a possibility that voters who nearly always vote GOP will be willing to give a Dem governor a chance?

I know that people joke about MS ranking last or close to last on pretty much every metric (ie "Thank God for Mississippi"), but I don't think I've ever seen any Dem politicians rhetorically say that voting Republican will turn your city, state, the county, etc. into Mississippi. Meanwhile, GOPers constantly reference California to fearmonger about liberal policies.

Some examples (including but not limited to):

• Single provider: e.g., UK
• Single payer: e.g., Canada, Taiwan
• Bismarck model: e.g., Germany, Austria
• Universal healthcare through heavily regulated private insurance: e.g., Netherlands, Switzerland

So, we’ve all heard varying takes on how the Democratic Party needs to change. Some people argue that the problem is their style, particularly with how much they suck at messaging, and how they come across as out of touch to a lot of voters. Others argue that they don’t actually stand for anything (I know I’ll get a ton of comments saying this is not true, but this is what a lot of people believe, so that’s why I’m saying this), and that they need a clear policy agenda to define themselves (and whether that’s more moderate or more progressive is a debate in and of itself).

Which side of the argument do you fall under? Do you think their problem is mainly their messaging, or do they need a new (or at least updated) set of policy ideas altogether?

For example, vacancy trutherism, which posits that there is no housing crisis in the country because there are so many more vacant housing units in the US than homeless people, so let's just give give a vacant unit to every homeless person and voila.

My personal opinion is that he was by far the worst member of the entire Biden administration. He was negligent in his duties to hold Trump and his co-conspirators accountable for their actions which in turn laid the groundwork for Trump to reclaim the presidency.

Of course I don't place the blame squarely on him as he is a judge by trait and judges tend to air on the side of impartiality. So his appointment played out as expected.

What are your opinions on his tenure?

How do we make sure that progressive candidates won't become turncoats?

Other than making sure candidates are not at risk of having strokes (got to get that out of the way to make room for serious answers)

This morning, Lithuania issued an air raid alert for Vilnius, forcing everyone to seek shelter as the Lithuanian military detected wayward drones heading for Lithuanian airspace. Estonia and Latvia recently issued air raid alerts and scrambled jets after a jammed Ukrainian drone flew into their air space, forcing a jet to blow it up over Southern Estonia.

The largest recent incident took place around a week ago when two jammed Ukrainian drones attacked oil storage containers in Latvia, forcing Latvia's defense minister to resign. Ukraine alleged that Russian jamming redirected it to attack those oil containers.

If Russia is actually using jamming technology to get drones to fly into or even attack the Baltic countries, that's quite an escalation considering these are all NATO countries. It's also a gray area considering the drones are from Ukraine, and not directly launched by Russia. Russia's UN ambassador at the same time is alleging Latvia is helping Ukraine's drone campaign, and even went so far as to suggest they're letting Ukraine launch drones from Latvia too.

I read an article from Politico that describes the primaries that took place yesterday. The main point of the article was that the Democrats' base is putting all of their support behind progressive candidates. And based on the article, progressives are mainly known for fighting against Trump and separating from the moderate Democrats (the ones who "play it safe," according to Politico).

Because of the distinction from moderate Democrats, and according to some other articles I've read, some people equate progressives to the far-left. Mainly, people who are much more radical in what they think. It's come to the point where Kamala Harris took on a "no bad ideas" policy that suggested things such as revising the Constitution.

Would you agree or disagree with this assessment of progressives? And based on your opinion, what do you think the future of the Democratic Party will look like if more progressives take the stage?

For example, Ron DeSantis, John Fetterman, Jared Polis all need to go touch grass

There's two angles this anger is coming from, first you have a lot of people concerned about its impacts on the workforce, especially college students and recent grads (we've had a number of stories of commencement speakers being booed for discussing AI).

The second angle is largely rural communities angry about the expansion of infrastructure (data centers themselves and the energy infrastructure to serve them) for training and inference.

On the other hand the tech industry is a massive portion of GDP growth over the last few years and its executive class are major donors who've proven willing to throw large sums against candidates who irritate them.